


sit under the stars with me (tell the stars all about me)

by memorysdaughter



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Late Night Conversations, Sarenrae, post ep. 53
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 07:24:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6844765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memorysdaughter/pseuds/memorysdaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pike tries to tell Wilhand about how she got her scar, and ends up finding a reason to keep fighting.</p>
<p>Post Episode 53.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sit under the stars with me (tell the stars all about me)

Pike finds her PawPaw Wilhand outside Scanlan’s mansion, looking up at the stars through the open front door of the house.  He’s delicately holding the statue of Sarenrae, cradling it the way the one would an infant, as he keeps his eyes on the sky.  As she approaches she sees his lips moving; the measured cadence of his voice suggests a prayer and there’s a soft glow encircling the statue’s head.

She sits down on a mostly-stable chair next to him.  Her body feels strange out of its plate armor.  She can’t seem to figure out how to place her limbs, so oddly free in loose pants and a simple tunic.  Wilhand seems to conclude his prayer a moment or two after she sits down, but she still waits for him to turn to her.  The stars overhead are sprinkled like diamonds on the night’s blackest cloth.  They suddenly seem very far away.

“My Pike.” Wilhand’s voice is soft in the night air.

Pike leans in and kisses his cheek.

“Your friends… they sacrificed a great deal to get you here.” It’s not a question.

Pike nods. “We’ve all sacrificed.”

Wilhand turns to her, shifting the statue in his arms.  He reaches up with one gnarled hand and gently touches the scar across her face. “You must tell me.”

“About the scar?”

“About everything,” Wilhand says.

Pike laughs. “We’d be here until next Winter’s Crest.”

“Then start at the beginning.”

Pike looks down at the little cloth slippers on her feet.  Words fill her brain and threaten to spill out into the cool night.  She takes a breath and reaches up for the comfort of her holy symbol. “I died,” she murmurs.

Wilhand says nothing.  He slips his hand into hers and squeezes tightly.

Tears fill Pike’s eyes.  She’s not sure why – her death is something that she thinks about nearly every day; it’s always there, like a specter in the back of her mind, reminding her of the consequences of being foolhardy enough to believe she could conquer everything.  But somehow being here with Wilhand is like confessing to failure, confessing that she failed him, and Sarenrae, and everything he’d taught her.

Wilhand keeps his hand tightly in hers. “She brought you back,” he murmurs after a long moment. “She brought you back to me.”

Pike closes her eyes and lets the tears drip down her face.

“The rest… it doesn’t matter so much,” Wilhand goes on. “You are here.  You came back to me.  These are the things I’ve wanted.  To not know where you were… at first it was very painful, but after a time it became like a small bird that sat upon my shoulder and sang every now and then.”

He puts his arm around Pike, squeezing her hand again. “You are my little bird, and though you flew away, you returned to your home, even though your wings might be a little tattered.”

Pike leans into his embrace, turning her head to look at the calm face of Sarenrae. “I died,” she whispers.

“And then you lived.” Wilhand strokes her face, touches her scar. “Tell me about this, my Pike.”

 “I went to sea,” Pike says.  Her voice trembles. “It was a dark night.  The kraken… came out of nowhere.  I was thrown overboard.”

She feels Wilhand’s arm tense around her, but he doesn’t speak.

“It grabbed me and started dragging me down,” Pike goes on.  It’s as though she’s reliving it, the sudden pressure of the inky water pressing in on her chest like a thousand angry fists, her lungs empty and burning, her world suddenly turned upside down.  The strange sensation of a very strong arm wrapped around her body, threatening to squeeze her to death – and her only thoughts in that moment were of Grog, of Wilhand, of Vox Machina waiting for their cleric to return from a mission she couldn’t fully explain.  A brief, quick, confused series of moments where she was positive she was reliving her death, confusing the kraken for the glabrezu, the tentacles around her becoming snapping jaws, the pain lancing through her far too familiar. “And they… they pulled me out…”

And she’d laid on the deck with the stars above twinkling at her, maybe the same stars she and Wilhand are sitting under now, the sensation of air rushing back into her lungs burning like a raging forest fire.  She couldn’t figure out how to coordinate her limbs, and she had to just lay there, vomiting up seawater and hating herself, while her shipmates fought and defeated the kraken.

“I felt like I wasn’t good enough.  Like I’d never been good enough,” Pike says now. “Like I’d never fit in again.”

Wilhand’s fingers release her shoulder and move back to her hand, gently bringing their entwined hands up to Pike’s holy symbol. “You’ve always belonged somewhere,” he says.

Pike bows her head. “I’m not like them.”

“And that’s exactly what they need,” Wilhand says.

Pike looks up at him, surprised.

“You’ve never minded being different, my Pike.  You were different when you lived here with Grog, simply because you were a gnome with a goliath best friend.  You were different even as a small child, simply because you had such a deep connection with Sarenrae.  And it is those things that I see in you now, these things that cause you to shine so brightly.  It is not _in spite of_ your friendship with Grog that you have gained strength, and friends who are family, nor your connection to Sarenrae.  It is with pride and _joy_ that these things benefit you,” Wilhand tells her. “So you are small.  Bah!  I am small – has that ever changed how you see me?”

“Of course not!”

Wilhand smiles. “Of course it should not.”

He shifts the statue again. “And in the eyes of your family… I see only adoration.  They adore you, my Pike.”

The statue, in his grip, begins to glow faintly.

“And _She_ adores you,” Wilhand adds.

Pike brushes the statue’s cheek.

“And if _they_ are for you, and _She_ is for you, then who in all the worlds, in all the hels, in this realm and the next, is _ever_ going to stop you?”

He hugs her tightly. “No one’s going to stop you, Pike,” he whispers.

“You don’t know that.”

“No.  But I am very old, and I have seen very much,” Wilhand says. “And in all that _very much_ I have never met anyone quite like you.”

He chuckles and places the statue squarely in her lap. “Until today, when I discovered there are six others with big hearts and complicated heads and twisting back stories… who perhaps all were broken birds…”

“And now we’ve all learned to fly again,” Pike breathes, and she wraps her arms around the statue.  A golden glow threatens to envelop her, and it feels like the gentlest caress.  In that moment she knows that no matter what happens, their journey to defeat the dragons has already been a success.

When the glow fades she looks up into Wilhand’s patient eyes. “How do you know so much?”

“I told you.  I am very old, and I have seen very much.” Wilhand gives her a cheeky smile, then reaches up and pats her cheek. “But also… some things you just _know_.”

Sarenrae and the stars seem to agree, and Pike finds that breathing is easier, even with the threat of dragons looming on the horizon.  Even with the unknown rising up in terrifying new ways, Pike holds onto the _known_ –

Their name is Vox Machina, and they fuck shit up.

(And they love her, and that, more than anything, is all that matters.)


End file.
